A top-tier research professional's hand-picked selection of documents from academe, corporations, government agencies (including the Congressional Research Service), interest groups, NGOs, professional societies, research institutes, think tanks, trade associations, and more.

This report presents results from an initial analysis of the 2012 SPPA. It contains statistics with demographic insights about U.S. adults’ participation across five modes of art activity: attending; reading books and literature; consuming through electronic media; making and sharing; and learning. Findings are discussed for specific art forms and trend data provided where possible. Also includes links to additional data and resources for researchers.

This report presents results from an initial analysis of the 2012 SPPA. It contains statistics with demographic insights about U.S. adults’ participation across five modes of art activity: attending; reading books and literature; consuming through electronic media; making and sharing; and learning. Findings are discussed for specific art forms and trend data provided where possible. Also includes links to additional data and resources for researchers.

“Design, vitalized and simplified, will make the comforts of civilized life available to an ever-increasing number of Americans,” said 20th-century industrial design pioneer Raymond Loewy. For the first time, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) takes an in-depth look at this dynamic field in the report Valuing the Art of Industrial Design: A Profile of the Sector and Its Importance to Manufacturing, Technology, and Innovation. NEA representatives announced the report today at the Industrial Designers Society of America’s international conference in Chicago, Illinois.

Industrial designers develop the concepts for manufactured products such as cars, home and electronic appliances, sporting goods, toys, and more. Working in a range of industries, industrial designers combine art, business, and engineering to make products and improve systems that people use every day. In recent years, they have also helped design user experiences and systems in a process known as “design thinking.” For example, industrial designers have worked on teams to improve the way patients and staff interact in the emergency room.

“Industrial designers play a significant role in today’s innovation economy, and they bring a creative lens to approach complex problems or challenges,” said NEA Senior Deputy Chairman Joan Shigekawa. “We hope this report provokes more discussion about how art works in the U.S. economy.”

What do we know about the 2.1 million artists in the United States’ labor force? To help answer that question, the NEA today released “Equal Opportunity Data Mining: National Statistics about Working Artists.” This new online research tool offers 70 searchable tables with figures on working artists by state and metropolitan area, by demographic information (including race and ethnicity, age, gender, and disability status), and by residence and workplace. The public is welcome to investigate the tables, a map of state-level rankings, and links to original sources.

“Artists represent just 1.4 percent of the labor force, but they have an outsized role as entrepreneurs and innovators who contribute to the vitality of the communities where they live and work,” said NEA Acting Chairman Joan Shigekawa. “These data add further detail and nuance to our understanding of the profile of American artists.”

This new research resource gives statistical profiles of Americans who reported an artist occupation as their primary job, whether full-time, part-time, or self-employed. The dataset looks at artists in 11 distinct occupations, including actors; announcers; architects; art directors, fine artists, and animators; dancers and choreographers; designers; entertainers and performers; musicians; photographers; producers and directors; and writers and authors. Some tables offer data on employed artists in particular, while other tables measure all artists in the workforce, both employed and looking for work.

New growth theory argues that, in advanced economies, economic growth stems less from the acquisition of additional capital and more from innovation and new ideas. On May 10, 2012, the Brookings Institution and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) hosted a symposium examining new growth theory as a tool for assessing the impact of art and culture on the U.S. economy, including the theory that cities play a major role in facilitating economic growth. The symposium featured papers jointly commissioned by the NEA Office of Research & Analysis and Michael Rushton, the co-editor of the Journal of Cultural Economics. The presentations were moderated by experts from Brookings, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it,” said American author Henry David Thoreau more than 150 years ago. Time and Money: Using Federal Data to Measure the Value of Performing Arts Activities is a new research note from the National Endowment for the Arts that looks at the value of the arts in three ways: time spent on arts activities; organizational revenue and expenses; and direct consumer spending. A particular focus on performing arts data provides consistency across these three measurements.

The note draws on the most recent data available from the U.S. Economic Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), to arrive at monetary and non-monetary value measurements of the nation’s performing arts sector. Recent data show that performing arts organizations generated nearly $13.6 billion in revenues; Americans spent $14.5 billion on performing arts admissions, and on any given day, 1.5 million Americans attended arts performances, usually with family or friends.